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Black leaf inside the lips
Summary It is the poem of Ki Hyeong-doh(1960∼1989), a Korean poet. *poet : Ki Hyeong-doh *genre : poetry *the year of publication : 1989 Overview This poem is the main poem of the collection of poems 《입속의 검은 잎(Black leaf inside the lips)》 of Ki Hyeong Do which was published in May, 1989. This collection of poems is posthumous works which means it is published after the poet died. There are 62 poems including〈안개(fog)〉〈전문가(an expert)〉〈백야(white night)〉〈밤눈(snow falling at night〉in this collection. The poems are mainly about the poverty in childhood, the loss of love, absurd reality, and the lives of urbanites. Generally the poems give feelings of death and despair, anxiety and emptiness, and misery. At the same time they are also fantastic and surrealistic. This poem also shows violent reality and the death caused by the reality and the life of horror symbolically. The content of the poem is about an unsure event which is closely related to the phases of the 1980s when Ki Hyeong Do was engaged as a poet. Above all it shows the painfulness of resistants who criticizes the political power at that time. Something happened but the poet couldn't do anything but a bystander over the reality. This poem gives the feeling of the writer's own fear. The poet is expressing this fear in the last stanza by writing "내 입 속에 악착같이 매달려 있는 검은 잎(A black leaf desperately clinging inside my lips)". source 입 속의 검은 잎 | Encyclopedia of Naver Full text original 입 속의 검은 잎 기형도 택시 운전사는 어두운 창밖으로 고개를 내밀어 이따금 고함을 친다, 그때마다 새들이 날아간다 이곳은 처음 지나는 벌판과 황혼, 나는 한번도 만난 적 없는 그를 생각한다 그 일이 터졌을 때 나는 먼 지방에 있었다 먼지의 방에서 책을 읽고 있었다 문을 열면 벌판에는 안개가 자욱했다 그해 여름 땅바닥은 책과 검은 잎들을 질질 끌고 다녔다 접힌 옷가지를 펼칠 때마다 흰 연기가 튀어나왔다 침묵은 하인에게 어울린다고 그는 썼다 나는 그의 얼굴을 한번 본 적이 있다 신문에서였는데 고개를 조금 숙이고 있었다 그리고 그 일이 터졌다, 얼마 후 그가 죽었다 그의 장례식은 거센 비바람으로 온통 번들거렸다 죽은 그를 실은 차는 참을 수 없이 느릿느릿 나아갔다 사람들은 장례식 행렬에 악착같이 매달렸고 백색의 차량 가득 검은 잎들은 나부꼈다 나의 혀는 천천히 굳어갔다, 그의 어린 아들은 잎들의 포위를 견디다 못해 울음을 터뜨렸다 그해 여름 많은 사람들이 무더기로 없어졌고 놀란 자의 침묵 앞에 불쑥불쑥 나타났다 망자의 혀가 거리에 흘러넘쳤다 택시 운전사는 이따금 뒤를 돌아다본다 나는 저 운전사를 믿지 못한다, 공포에 질려 나는 더듬거린다, 그는 죽은 사람이다 그 때문에 얼마나 많은 장례식들이 숨죽여야 했던가 그렇다면 그는 누구인가, 내가 가는 곳은 어디인가 나는 더 이상 대답하지 않으면 안 된다, 어디서 그 일이 터질지 아무도 모른다, 어디든지 가까운 지방으로 나는 가야 하는 것이다 이곳은 처음 지나는 벌판과 황혼, 내 입 속에 악착같이 매달린 검은 잎이 나는 두렵다 Full text translated Black Leaf Inside the Lips Ki Hyung-Doh A taxi driver sticks his head out of the dark window outside and At times yells out, every then birds fly away Here is the field and twilight I pass by for the first time, I think of him whom I've never met before When that incident broke out I was in a distant nook In the room of dust I was reading a book When I open the door the field was shrouded in the mist That summer ground was dragging around the book and black leaves Every time I spread the folded clothes white smoke sprang out Silence suits servant, he wrote I have seen his face once before It was in the newspaper, he lowered the head a little Then that incident broke out, some time later he died His funeral was wholly greasy with furious rainstorm Coach that carried the dead moved sluggishly, unbearably People clung themselves desperately to the funeral procession and Black leaves were fluttering full in the coach of white My tongue was gradually stiffening up, his little son Unable to stand the siege of the leaves, bursted out crying That summer many people vanished in a bunch and Appeared before the silence of the frightened here and there Tongues of the dead flooded all over the road The taxi driver at times looks back I cannot trust that driver, seized with fear I stutter, he is a dead man For that reason how many funerals had to be breathless Then who is he, where is the place I'm going to I'm not supposed to give no response anymore, where That will happen, nobody knows, wherever I must go to a region nearby Here is the field and twilight I pass by for the first time, A black leaf desperately clinging inside my lips: this is what I'm afraid of Translated by Kim Yoon-jin